


As Fast as I Can

by tinsnip



Category: Deep Dish Nine - Fandom, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, Vignette, introspective, trying to figure out something which isn't really figure-out-able
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/pseuds/tinsnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He can't stop thinking about him."</p><p>This is all so new. He has to take it one step at a time. If he rushes, if he stumbles... it doesn't bear thinking about. Better to take it slow.</p><p>Julian Bashir thinks about Elim Garak, and about how unusual his life has become of late. Vignette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Fast as I Can

**Author's Note:**

> I had completely forgotten that I wrote this! I wrote it for Lady Yate-Xel, once upon a time, just as shared DD9 brain-bubbles. The song attached is Great Big Sea's ["Fast As I Can"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdQde2fKiAc), and if you like it, you should [buy it!](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/up/id433330358)

_from the first hello you gave to me, i’ve done nothing else but smile_  
_and i know you’re in a hurry, but it’s gonna take a while_  
_so forgive me if we go slow, but there’s something i think you should know_  
 

He can’t stop thinking about him.

It hasn’t always been like this. When they first met, this man was nothing more to Julian than someone interesting to talk to. He knew about Cardassian literature, and literature in general. He knew about film. And he was clever, God, marvellously clever, witty and sardonic, and he made Julian laugh.

It was when he’d found himself thinking of one of his little barbs the next day, completely out of context, and bursting into unexpected laughter in the kitchen at Deep Dish Nine, that he’d realized he might be in trouble.

He can’t stop thinking about him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, this calm, elegant, pale-skinned man has made himself comfortable, and at the most unexpected times, Julian finds himself wondering what he’d say, what he’d do. It isn’t hero-worship, not in the slightest; Julian knows what that feels like. He’s had his share of role-models in his life, as he’s tried to figure himself out, tried to find a way to fit into the world that worked for him, that didn’t hurt. It’s one thing to want to be like someone, to walk like them, to talk like them.

This isn’t that.

He just can’t stop thinking about him.

 _don’t push me in too deep_  
_i’ve always been the fool who rushes in_  
_you’ve got to take the pieces one by one before you’ve got everything_  
_so forgive me if we take time, but there’s something that’s been on my mind_

It doesn’t make any sense.

Thinking about this man wouldn’t be a problem, really, except somehow he seems to have gone completely insane and has…

God, sometimes he still can’t believe it –

He’s been seeing this man, romantically.

It wasn’t something that would have ever crossed his mind, before him. Julian’s romantic history, such as it was, has been quite exclusively limited to women. Every delightful and not-so-delightful liaison, every relationship, and the only real love affair he’s ever had: all women, always women, and he’d always thrown himself in head-over-heels, thrilled to lose himself in eyes and hands and skin. He’s never thought of men that way. It isn’t a case of active _dis_ interest – he’s not repulsed or anything silly like that – it’s just that… Well, if he were in a garden, surrounded by delicious fruit, ripe on the vine, a thousand varieties and all so sweet that no matter what he chooses, he’ll enjoy it... why on earth would he then wander away, looking for something else to eat?

But now here he finds himself, crouched in the spice patch, crushing mint leaves and inhaling their scent –

This is his life now: tortured metaphors, trying to explain something that simply doesn’t make any sense.

Going out with him for coffee, to discuss books and film: that made sense. That had been fun!

And then, at the end of the night, the man had smiled at him, and asked him if he’d care to see him again in a slightly different context – and he’d said _yes._

And yes, and yes again, and yes _again:_ to a movie, to the park, to Julian’s own apartment, to palms touching, to Julian’s own hand against the man’s cool throat, to standing so close together they could breathe each other’s breath -

It doesn’t make any _sense!_

God, he’s found himself contemplating _more:_ if talking to him is so delightful, if his words are so skilled and sweet that they sometimes feel like a caress, what would it be like to actually kiss him? Would it be something familiar? Would it be strange beyond belief? If he ever dares to try it –

Is he honestly going to _try it?_

Sometimes he feels like he’s trying to put some kind of puzzle together, a complicated jigsaw, without any picture to guide him. He looks at the individual pieces and doesn’t recognize them, and yet when he snaps them together they fit. When he finds the last piece, when he presses it into its place, what is he going to have? Will the picture make any sense? Or will he still not understand?

 _i’m going fast as i can – please don’t make me rush_  
_this feeling’s coming on way too fast_  
_i’ll tell you all of the things that you’ll never forget_  
_but i’m not ready to say ‘i love you’ yet_

It would be so much easier if the man were a woman.

Then, Julian could look at him and understand. He could study that understated elegance and admire it openly. He could stare into blue eyes and let his heart race. He could reach out and trace a hand over pale skin. He could close his eyes and listen to that voice, to those words, and feel himself fall, feel himself tumble –

But as it stands, he’s just not sure.

If the man were a woman, Julian would know where he stood. How he feels would make so much more sense, then. He can break it down and catalogue it, clinically: can’t stop thinking about him; want to be with him; want to impress him; want to do things for him; every little gift makes him blush; every shared cup of coffee makes him smile; and god damn it, since it rather seems to look like a duck and sound like a duck, at what point can he simply just let it be a duck and get _on_ with it?

But then he thinks about getting on with it, and what that might entail –

And back into himself he spins, and he’s trapped in his own uncertainty, lost in unfamiliar territory, and his ragged hand-drawn map doesn’t seem to apply.

If the man were a woman, Julian wouldn’t worry so much about what it all meant. He’d know what to say and when to say it, how long each step should take, what would indicate delicate disinterest, or how to show that he was very interested indeed. As it stands, when he’s alone, when the man isn’t with him and Julian’s suddenly gripped by paralyzing uncertainty, he goes over everything he’s done and said and wonders what it means, wonders what the man sees.

He’s so tired of second-guessing himself. But he’s not ready to speak his mind.

When they’re together, he knows what this is.

When he’s alone, he can’t quite define it.

But sometimes, when he sneaks up on it, when he looks at it sideways, he knows exactly what he’s feeling –

But for now, the man smiles at him, takes his hand, and seems content to wait.

And if Garak can be patient, Julian supposes he can too.

 _i’m not ready to say ‘i love you’ yet_  
_\-- great big sea, “fast as i can”_


End file.
